


Disjointed

by GiannaQueenofBelgium



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, Daddy Issues, Dark, Disjointed, Disturbing, Emotional Manipulation, Erik is a Father, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Imprisonment, Kidnapped, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mutants, No Smut, POV First Person, Post-X-Men: Days of Future Past, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Racism, Single Parents, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Visions, Xmen, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8938270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiannaQueenofBelgium/pseuds/GiannaQueenofBelgium
Summary: Disclaimer: Mature Themes Throughout
He first appears to her in visions. He finds her in a basement.  She's twisted, angry, and wants nothing more than to find peace with the world, and within herself. Even if that means breaking bones. But as Erik reenters their lives and the two find a semblance of kinship with one another Charles fears the hurt girl will choose violent means to gain reconciliation with herself.





	1. Chapter 1

Suffocating. 

Thick air so warm and moist it’s like breathing in someone else’s air, so close that you have your nose right in their mouth. The basement’s mouth smells like mold, and thick. Not sure how to explain how thick smells, sort of like the back of the refrigerator and a trash heap after a heavy rain mixed together. I roll over and my cheek presses into the concrete, it is cooler than the air but it only chills my cheek. That’s not enough. I angle my head up, trying to press my neck on the scathing floor to cool it. Everything feels red, even in the pitch blackness all around.

Heavy.

My arms are pinned over my chest, fingers digging deep into shoulder muscles, nails cutting grooves through my t-shirt. A band of stretchy material is pulled and wrapped around my torso so my arms can’t move, the poor man’s straight jacket. It hurts. Everything does. Doesn’t matter, everything always has. Long before the visions. Before the projections. This basement has always been my prison, but the visits used to be shorter. Now it’s not a trip, it’s a permanent relocation. 

I like my lips. They’re dry. They make my tongue feel dry and scaley too. I can’t help but lick them again, it made the burning stop for a moment. But comes back again, worse this time. Blood  is in my mouth. I must have pushed too hard and split my lip. Dehydration has made them delicate. Like drying flower petals left in the sun to bleach, if you press just a little too hard they’ll fall apart. I’ve been pushed a little too hard many times, but this stretchy material holds me together. I hate it. I wish it’d unravel and let my body fall apart. Then maybe like crushed flower petals I could be blown by the wind right out of this place.

I bite at it with my bleeding lips. If I could see there’d be red splotches covering the nude colored bindings.

My teeth hurt. Yesterday I chipped one of the back ones, I can feel the difference when I run my tongue over it. It’s hard to sleep when your teeth don’t even feel the same anymore. The concrete always feels the same, but I hate it so that offers no comfort. My body hurts and after what he’s done to it I don’t want to think too much about my skin. But my teeth, my tongue, they’re always the same. They taste a little bad some days, but they’re a comfort. But when your mouth is all wrong you know things are bad.

There are fireworks going off across the room bright and blinding. But I don’t shut my eyes, I stare directly into them until everything goes fuzzy at the edges and I see clearly only if I don’t focus too hard. There’s a man, oh I don’t like men too much, I close my eyes but he’s still there, and he’s in a wheelchair. I open my eyes again. He’s looking right at me in the center of the firecrackers and sparklers. I reach forward, wait, I can’t. My arm’s pressed against my chest, I can feel my ribs jutting near my elbow. But I see my hand reaching forward, it has to be mine, the same burn mark near my wrist is on this arm. Yes, its my arm, and it reaches out towards him. He takes it in his. Vision Me doesn’t mind, real Me does. I close my eyes but I still see.

“You’ll be safe with me,” He says. Vision me smiles, Real me shakes all over and scrapes her cheek hard on the cool ground. Her now not quite so normal or comforting mouth foams. The chill settles on my skin, it doesn’t soak into my brain to calm down my crazy thoughts. The foam mixes with the blood from my lip and wets my cheek. Wets the concrete. Makes a sickly sound when I bash my head against the floor and the growing puddle.

“You’ll be safe with us,” It’s a promise. 

Then the world goes black and then alone again. Not so bad. I lick my lips and taste more blood.


	2. Chapter 2

 

I’m special.

I know this because he tells me. Every day. Heavy steps down the stairs, the creak of the locks, the squeak of the door, then he sits up above and talks on the landing. For hours. For days. He never stops.

“Weren't taken off the curb like some worn out couch that weren’t wanted no more,” He croaks. “Nah, yer special. A snowflake I watched fall from high up in heaven, till you got close enough to catch. Member how they’d fall on my mittens, the blue wool ones Ma made me. They’d stay there still and perfect. Till I breathed out, a course’, then they’d turn into drips.” His voice goes dark.

“You won’t be turning into a drip on me will ya?” It’s not a true question. It’s sort of a threat question, one where if I don’t answer right there’ll be consequences. I’ve learned to answer right, I never answer wrong like how I used to.

“I’ll stay perfect forever,” I whisper hoarse and quiet. But he knows what I’ve said, I say it every day, or night or whatever it is now, because he asks me every day or night or whatever time it is now. 

“I know yah will, because yer my perfect snowflake,” He laughs. He has a mean laugh. If I had to stay alone in this basement till the day I died of bloody, dried up lips and my own fingernails cutting into my arteries and never have to hear that laugh again I’d die happy.

But I never believe what he says. Don’t think I was ever perfect, not even the day I was born all innocent and pure and not knowing about how I’d be here one day. No, I was never perfect. But I was alright. I was okay enough. But he’s melted me with his heavy breath, with the stinking air down here in the basement, and now I’m nothing more than a puddle. A drip. But as long as I keep saying I’m not what I am he doesn’t catch on. I’m a farce snowflake.

Then he tells me the story of how he found me like always. After that I show him everything he wants but can’t have, then he takes from me what he can. It used to all be real in the beginning. But now the lie has expanded beyond me not being a puddly mess, he no longer clomps down the rest of the stairs to where I lay. No, he just sits now, staring into space making gurgling noises and touching himself. I make him dream all the things he wants to do, repeating all the things he has. It's better than having them really happen, but not by much.

I won’t talk about that anymore. 

 

Sometimes I hear things that can’t be true.

Occasionally it’s other people’s voices, the sound of their feet. There’s a click, click, click one that comes from above the far corner of the basement where there’s the tiled kitchen. I’ve seen into his mind just far enough to know what the upstairs looks like. It’s all blurry in my head because I wouldn’t go far enough into his rancid brain to get a better look, but I know the house well enough. The click, click, is accompanied by a lady voice, high and impossible to understand. The man voice that is always with her is easier to understand. It is deep and resonates right through the floor. But they’re not real, they’re on television. He must keep one on the kitchen counter, or the table, and put it on sometimes.

Some of the things I hear are promises.

Those are the softest, most distant ones. I hear the clicks and the man and lady voices more regularly. But the promise comes in the middle of the night and wakes me up screaming. Not that it’s a scary voice or anything, when I hear it I feel almost safe. But as soon as it goes away and I wake up to this all over again it feels ten time worse then when I feel asleep. 

At first there were memories in the night. Of soft hands, comforting faces, a brown eyed boy in bed next to me. There were older ones in a blue house, the person I once grew inside of brushing my hair and kissing my forehead. But once those dreams stopped I stopped trying to remember. Thinking about the life before didn’t make for an escape, it made for a worse awakening. 

Now life is just the concrete. The clicks on the floor above, the occasional promise I know will be broken, and the nightly visits. There is no better. This is only this.

So I forgot about the brown eyed boy. I forgot about the blue house.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading a second chapter.  
> This whole short chapter thing is kind of killing me but I like it at the same time. It's nice to keep things straight to the point, condensed and no fluff. Starting to like it a little more each time.  
> What's the last book you read? I just finished the 5th wave last night at 1am. Had to finish it in one sitting I liked it so much.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Yesterday I had a dream.

That’s not uncommon. It happens every night. But this one was different, it didn’t hurt me like the others. When I woke up I cried hard, silent and shaking. It hurt in a different way, a longing way. The only thing in the world I wanted was to go back, to be in the dream for just a another moment. Mostly the brown eyed boy is in my head, he’s little, half my size with a happy face. A different one was there this time, near my age maybe a little older. Green eyes that stared at me like he was looking at the best thing in the world. 

He had a little box, one that could fit in the palm of your hand easy peasy. Black velvet. There was a surprise for me inside. But I wasn’t supposed to have known about that little treasure, it was in his drawer hidden away. It was cold and I needed a long shirt, thought I could just borrow one. The idea was especially nice for two reasons: 

  1. All his shirts were soft
  2. All his shirt smelled of him. Which was great.



I pulled one up that was a little farther down, near the bottom, because it was a favorite of mine when he wore it. It had long black sleeves that clung to his biceps and was made of a cuddly fabric that I loved to touch. He had worn it when he kissed me for the first time. When it came out of the drawer so did the little box. It flipped out of the dresser and onto the carpet, landing next to my foot. An eternity passed as I stared at it. The slow realization dawning like the first crepuscular lights of a new day.

For the first time in a long time I felt warm inside hidden down in the basement. Not the fever hot that came and went often, but comfort warm. Holding hands, long hugs, late nights on the couch warm. 

Once my eyes had finished taking in the velvet box and my mind had turned into a frenzied soup of excitement and delight I quickly hid the box again. Squealing I jumped in place. The best moment of my life, for now. It would be the best when he showed me the box himself. When what was inside would belong to me and moreover, he would belong to me.

But that wasn’t meant to be. For when the man upstairs lumbers down here to this hell to tell the story of how he saved me he always emphasis whom he saved me from.

“That freak was gon’ hurt you. He try an’ keep yah from me. Try an’ keep us ‘part.” He’d curse for a minute. “I’d been watchin’ long enough to know he wasn’t gon go easy. So when y’all turned the corner I kept an eye on his ole head. Big head if yah ax me. Then BAM! That big ole head didn’t do much to keep him breathing.” The memory of him crumpling as a brick glances off his skull flashes in my mind as he retells it. 

The velvet box stayed hidden in his breast pocket. As blood cascaded from his skull, down his neck and onto his chest it was cloaked in a curtain of red.

Unknown to me someone would find me after the man upstairs would take me away. He would dig through his pockets for identification but find a diamond instead. He would hold it in his hand a long while, battling with himself. But the bad would win and he would leave the other man dieing in the street and take the ring for himself. Everything was taken from me that night.

When I woke up from the dream I didn’t want to be alive anymore.

Not that I had in a long time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn the other night. And "The Infinite Sea" by Rick Yancey today. Has me in the mood for lost love.


	4. Chapter 4

On the 198th day I tried to saw my leg off. 

The chain that holds me to the wall was the only thing keeping me on the floor. Nineteen links long and ending in a heavy plate bolted to the ground it secures me in place. My ankle smelled of rot. On the 197th day he came down to visit and had dinner with me after he was done. It took him two trips to bring the dishes back upstairs. He didn’t grab his steak knife on the first go so I hid it in my pant leg. When he came back I shrouded him. Those were the earliest days of it. I couldn’t hold it for long, just let him see a phantom knife on the plate and hoped that he’d forget when he got to the kitchen. 

I passed out when I hit my tibia. Just centimeters into the skin and the blood gushed out. Couldn’t see a thing, just felt it pooling around my body as I bit down on my lip and tried not to scream. It soaked through my pants and into my underwear. It squelched every time I moved. He found me unconscious with an attempted amputation and two holes bitten through my bottom lip.

We didn’t eat dinner together again.

The bindings holding my arms wouldn’t come until I tried to strangle him the chain on my mutilated leg.

 

“I’m coming, I’m nearly there. Stay strong ole’ girl.” He says. He lies. I lean over and count the links by running the tip of my nose against each one. This is a new chain. I’ve broken the last three. It’s a little longer than the others. At first I stupidly thought it meant I was one inch closer to freedom.  

Upstairs there is a crash. I startle but don’t stop my compulsive counting of the chain links. Thinking that he’s just dropped another plate, or punched a wall or done something of the normal routine I don’t react. Then, rememberance. He left not long ago. To the job that makes him smell of tar. Something must be wrong. I sit up slowly.

There is a louder sound this time, many footsteps charging through the front hall. I uncurl and force my back against the wall, pushing myself into a hunkered stance with my feet.

The door to the basement rattles. The seven locks and bolts that he has screwed into it clink against their fasteners. Voices, shouting, a temporary calm followed by the sudden splintering of wood. Light bursts through large gashes in the door. I wince in the intensity of daylight and flatten myself against the dank cement wall. A hand, a blue hand, smashes through the wood until there are just chunks of wood left. 

I watch the blue man descend slowly. Each movement is measured and slowed. He doesn’t want to startle me. He does anyway. When the blue man, I can only assume that is what it is, reaches the end of the stairs he lowers himself to thee ground. I realize that I’m lying down, panting and crying, maybe screaming. Not sure. All there is this blue thing in front of me. My brain doesn’t really care to tell me if I’m screaming or not.

 

“Please hold still,” He begs and moves forward. Scared witless I react in the only defense I have. From the corners of the basement bats and bugs and every sort of flying creature materialize and swarm his head. They attack with talons and his hands fly up to protect the soft parts of his face, to bat off the animals. Although I don’t know if I’m making any noise I hear his. Animalistic, bellowing, he falls face down with this terrible roar reverberating off the walls. 

 

“Enough,” There is another voice. The same that has been visiting regularly. My hold on the blue man weakens to the point of each creature dissipating into the nothingness from which they were brought forth. His face is covered in bleeding lashes, caused by his own claws. There’s someone in my head. Holding me down. I fight but I could never win against this leviathan. The last images are of the blue thing breaking the chain that’s held me down with one swift yank. 

  
He carries me up the steps and into the kitchen. It looks so simple. So normal. Not the home of a sadist.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is as bad/disturbing as this fic gets so don't worry it doesn't get progressively more detailed in nastiness. It is inspired by books such as "Room" and "Seed" which I've been reading a lot of lately. Wanted to toy with an unreliable, broken narrator in the comfortable field of fan-fiction. Thanks for feedback on my prose as I'm experimenting with a new style of first perspective, sort of simplistic yet visceral.


End file.
